Activated on June 8th, 2024
I took off from home after having breakfast on my way to Mt. Wilson for an activation. Google estimated it would take 55 minutes to wend through the mountain road to my destination. En-route, I stopped at a red light when I casually turned my head to the left and saw Albert’s place. Sorry, amigo, not today.
Most of the drive was under a pretty thick overcast. Going up hill was fun even though visibility was reduced due to the fog. Eventually, I was going through patches of fog as I traversed those windy mountain curves. Breaking through the cloud layer, I came into beautiful sunshine and the wonderful vistas that wooded mountain roads provide. I parked, got out, and was greeted by warm weather, 5,600 feet in elevation.
I picked the only spot covered by a tree. The shade was meager, but enough to cover my table, chair, and equipment. As I was setting up, I was keenly aware my chair was about four feet from the edge of the overlook on my right, a view of a steep wooded ravine. However, my view to the front, and for the whole activation, was a beautiful, bright view of the Los Angeles basin and San Gabriel Valley covered in a breathtaking blanket of cotton balls. The last time I was here was over a decade ago and I forgot what a beautiful site the lookout provides. However, I do not remember any flies.
After the set-up of my gear and fighting flies, I was ready to send my QSLs. Up to this point I kept getting glances from the visitors. I suppose that setting up on the side of the outlook peaked the visitors’ interests. This is when an older gentleman came over and started asking questions. He had the presence of a patriarch as his family gathered respectfully behind him. He asked many questions and had another one ready after each of my answers, all of them quite on topic. His interest lasted about 25-30 minutes before moving off, taking the rest of this family to new interests.
I finally started calling CQ on 18.086 MHz, 17-meters. As I recall, I had one contact made when again an onlooker came by with questions. He was from Las Vegas, and his two cousins were visiting from China. They left after about five minutes or so. I was then able to get a couple more contacts. The first two were strong signals, giving me hope for the rest of the activation, the third one was quite weak as I reported an RST of 229. Sensing the band slipped from me, I QSYed to better grounds as I batted away the flies.
The 15-meter band was my next stop as I parked on 21.063 MHz. Things were looking up as the contacts came in with greater frequency. Yes! After the first contact, hunters came in with two to three minutes of separation. I am diggin’ this. Around this time a lady came up to ask a question while I was sending. I raised one index finger gesturing to her to give me a moment. She apologized, took a step back and waited. When ready, I looked up and mentioned my shortcoming in multitasking during sending and copying. She was polite but asked questions in a manner that made me think she holds a position of authority, like an academic or a corporate manager. She wanted to know what I was doing, and I explained through a series of answers. In the end she thanked me for updating her and left! She was not rude in the least, just curt. I smiled as she left.
While on fifteen meters I made six QSOs in a little less than 20 minutes. This is a good rate for me, as my experience for the last several activations was less timely. My contacts came from California, Georgia, Indiana, and Louisiana. Reception was pretty good, as the only low RST was for one of the Georgians with a 229. I didn’t even think about my antenna this time as I did during the last activation. My MPAS was doing just fine, as I completed my nineth QSO, one of them being a Park-to-Park! However, I had a difficulties sending because I kept twitching as the flies kept buzzing and landing on my face, ears, and keying hand.
I did notice a young Indian family standing off to one side. They obviously waited respectfully for a time in which I appeared not to be busy before approaching. The young wife asked most of the questions, her husband off to the side eventually asking questions of his own. Their young son eventually joins them with the grandmother in tow. This question-and-answer session lasted a full 18 minutes. She and her husband had good questions and enjoyed me keying the wife’s name: Swati.
While editing the accompanying video, I decided to cut this part out and add it to the end as somewhat of a “deleted scene” or extra footage. I really do not want to be pretentious, but I don’t know what to call it. I think the exchange with the young couple is a good example that shows promotion of the hobby and POTA.
At this point my stupid human trick is exposed. Thirty minutes after the young family left, an older couple with their college daughter stopped by. The father asked about Morse Code and during our chat I went to demonstrate sending, when I discovered why there was a lack of contacts in the last thirty minutes. You see, when keying Swati’s name a half hour earlier, I turned down my power to zero watts, to not send her name over the air. Once they left, I forgot to turn the power back up! In those intervening thirty minutes, I did a tap dance on the 20, 17, 15, and 12-meter bands while continuously swatting at the flies. No wonder! What an idiot I was. No one is going to respond to me while transmitting into a dummy load.
Idiocy corrected, I settled on the 20-meter band and planted my flag on 14.057 MHz. Immediately I heard an activator calling POTA quite clearly. I am not so good at doing P2P in Morse Code, as everyone has a different way of communicating that they want a P2P. Hells bells, I said to myself, just do it. So, I did, and it wasn’t pretty. I’ll get my cheese later, but the other activator was too fast for me to copy with confidence, I think I sent a BT and the P2P to let him know, he responded with RST 73 dit-dit while I was attempting to send my park information. While trying to send my info again I heard him send over my keying ending in another dit-dit. I was thinking I was doing something wrong, so I tried again. This is where my LIDness clearly shines. Again, I try to send my park info when I realize the operator faded and I can no longer hear him. At least I got enough information for a QSO, and another P2P as POTA will figure it out later.
I’ll take my cheese now, thank you very much!
With that last contact I decided to call it an activation for two reasons: I was now getting chilly in the shade, and I was frankly fed up with the fly swatting. No, really, those flies were incessant. However, the view of the basin and valley went from glorious to a greyish/overcast view. You could see some details of the basin but without definition. After I packed up and went to the Cosmic Café, I managed to take a nice shot of the San Gabriel Valley. It was beautiful.
Yes, I really did enjoy my activation. I enjoy speaking with folks about the hobby and Parks on The Air. In all I had six interactions with the folks on that overlook. Except for the 30-minute pause due to my SHT, I really did expect more contacts from my elevated station, even with my southernly exposure. Still, I activated, I enjoyed watching the people, and gave initiating a P2P in Morse code a shot.
Those flies though…
Activation Statistics
| Activation Number | 66 |
| Date | 8 June, 2024 |
| Park | US-4453 Angeles National Forest |
| Number of Contacts | 10 |
| DX Contacts | None |
| Park Activated? | Yes |
| Previous Attempts | None |
| Park to Park Contacts | 2 |
| Mode | CW |
| Radio | Elecraft KX3 |
| Antenna | MPAS 2.0 in the vertical configutaion staked to the ground |
| Tuner | Internal |
| Power | 5W using a 3Ah Bioenno battery |
Leave a Reply